Radical solutions urged to beat growing climate threat

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Techniques for sucking carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, such as artificial
trees, must be urgently developed to prevent catastrophic global warming,
according to the Government’s chief scientific adviser on climate
change.Professor David MacKay was speaking in response to the
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) conclusion that it was
“extremely likely” that man-made emissions caused most of the warming in the
past 60 years.

The panel scrapped its previous most extreme scenario, which said the
temperature could rise by more than 6C (43F) by 2100. The upper limit of its
“very high emissions” scenario is now 4.8C, with the reduction

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Growing extremes: running from a typhoon in China

September 28 2013 ChinaFotoPress/Getty

Growing extremes: running from a typhoon in China

September 28 2013 ChinaFotoPress/Getty

Fighting a forest fire in Australia

September 28 2013 Daniel Munoz/Reuters

Key changes

Sea level increase by 2100, worst case scenario
2007: 59cm
2013: 98cm
By 2007, too little research had been done on melting ice sheets to allow their contribution to sea levels to be included.
Temperature increase by 2100, worst case scenario
2007: 6.4C
2013: 4.8C
The "pause" in the warming trend since 1998 is inconsistent with the more alarming prediction.
Sensitivity of the climate to CO2
2007: 2C increase
2013: 1.5C increase
Recent scientific papers have said 2C was too high.

Key conclusionsHumans to blame "extremely likely" that man-made emissions are responsible for most of the temperature increase since 1951.
Arctic sea ice "medium confidence" that the average summer retreat in the last three decades was the fastest for 1,450 years.
Recent warming "likely" the warmest 30-year period in the Northern Hemisphere in the last 1,400 years.
Heatwaves "very likely will occur with higher frequency and duration".
Cold winter extremes "will continue to occur".
Sea levels average annual rate of increase has almost doubled since 1900.